"All the staff were helpful, courteous ..."

Thank you for your comments. This is a particularly busy time of the year for A&E departments, with high numbers of often quite unwell people attending our hospitals for emergency help.

There are plans in place, however, to resolve the situation so that our staff are able to treat for their patients in surroundings that are conducive to good care.

The current plan is that by the end of 2011, there will be four urgent care centres created within east and north Hertfordshire at Hertford County, Cheshunt Community, the Lister and QEII hospitals (the latter two will be 24-hours).

These important new services, which will be run by doctors and nurses, will treat around two-thirds of people who attend a normal A&E department at the moment. They will have access to a wide range of diagnostic services, including radiology, and be able to treat the vast-majority of non-emergency illnesses and injuries - i.e. the ones where people take themselves to A&E and don't need to call a blue-light ambulance.

Come the end of 2011, all major A&E services (i.e. principally those who need emergency care to help save their lives) will be brought together at an expanded unit at the Lister hospital in Stevenage.

This new facility, which will be linked through a clinical network to the urgent care centres, will concentrate on the most unwell patients brought in to hospital - mainly by emergency ambulance. At the same time, the urgent care centres will care for everyone else, with greater access to these services being made available in east Hertfordshire through the new services developed at Hertford County, Cheshunt Community and the QEII.

Our aim, therefore, is to match the professionalism and quality of care provided by our A&E staff with facilities that are fit for purpose. It will take a little time to create the latter, but everything is in place now to make sure that this happens.